Joyless
by melissaisdown
Summary: The significance of a kiss.


Notes: Different [contrasting] versions of the scene. House's POV written by melissaisdown, Cuddy's POV written by LJ's ashley_west. Spoilers for 'Joy.' Please review

* * *

_**Joyless**_

House

Here.

He was here, standing at her door, knocking. A creak and he glared, or stared, standing still, not knowing if he'd see the same woman as earlier that day.

Not knowing if he'd ever see that woman again.

She opened the door but stayed at a distance. He wanted to say I was wrong. He wanted her closer. Optimism, or his best attempt, came first. She sank, blue eyes bloodshot, quiet and still as he heard the slow, spiritless beat of her broken heart.

You're quitting?

It wasn't really a question. It was why he was here.

He made her smile with a weak hollow patronizing remark. He knew she wasn't  
ready for resignation. He knew this was his fault in some way but discouragement was a side effect, not a symptom. House could never accept her having a stranger's child. He wished he could say that instead of sorry, say something that would make a difference.

It's too bad, you would have made a great mother.

Honesty hurt, but he was here, his initial intentions eclipsed by the sight of her.  
She looked lost and alone, always alone, a solitary stature striving to be a single parent now a joyless soul in a dark corner, alone.

He wanted all of her pain to rise, it'd mounted since the IVF, he knew if she never released it she'd never recover, she'd never try again. He knew.

Anger came first and after it escaped he saw there was nothing left but an empty space. Her eyes were filled with the tears of every loss of every year: all feeling she might have felt, all words she might have uttered, would have seemed inadequate beside the adequacy of her silence, ineloquent against the eloquence of her  
beauty—and of her body, close to him finally, small and strong. Sad and susceptible.

He wanted to console, he wanted to confess, he just wanted her.

I don't know came as a somber sound but the silence seemed ceaseless, she stared at him suspecting but scared of her own uncertainty. There was a pause that seemed about to shatter and was only brought back to oblivion by the tightening of his arms around her and the sense that she was resting there as a caught, clutching gossamer feather, drifted in out of the darkness.

House tried to smile but his lips acquiesced, half in an overpowering rush of triumph, half lest he expose his exaltation and spoil the spontaneity, the power and purpose. The kiss was their kismet— fate and the confrontation of fear, the defeat of what they've always felt but could never express, except here, like this.  
A kiss, impossible to describe, never to be repeated; as though her pain rose, revealing everything she'd suppressed for so long, then settled transiently and dissolved upon his own heart.

The foyer fell away in melted shadows, the hallway was heaven, it was hope.  
The door was open to the unlit nursery, an open door, an empty room, their future.

The lines of her body were familiar under the soft texture of fabric, she was uplifted, coming to him on tip toe as her fingers grazed the rim of his ear. He brought her closer, held her tighter, with the strength, the desire to never let go.

It was true, if nothing else. The way her damp hand held him to her, the salty taste of tears across her lips, the relief and the warmth, the reciprocity of remembering when they'd done this before, of forgetting why they waited so long to do it again.

It wasn't pity or remorse, it wasn't impulsive either.

It was premeditated passion.

He wanted to relieve, release and never relent; to reduce her misery by being here.

Here.

And so they stood, their mouths annihilating doubt, resurrecting possibility.  
He claimed her pain without admitting his own. The love, the loss, the regret,  
he wanted everything to be different between them and it was, for a deep  
devouring inevitable expression of all the inexpressible emotion, the undying devotion.

He wanted her, here and now and more than ever. They hovered, vulnerable, breathless, wavering and in that instant with her eyes she asked:

What happens next?

He wanted her, but more than anything he didn't want her to give up.

So he told her the answer in a glance, as he caught his breath and let her let go.

"Goodnight," he said, meaning another time, not knowing if this was it.

"Goodnight," he heard her whisper as the door closed behind him.

It was a better night, a glimpse of good and a brief denial of the bad.  
The day had piled terror upon the ache and yearning but now she had a tomorrow, a hopeful dream born out of an unfair nightmare. He gave her hope, he thought, limping back to his bike.

House wondered if he gave her a reason to reconsider.  


* * *

Cuddy

Yellow.

Lemon, cream, amber, saffron.

Mustard.

Mustard seed, sow and ye shall reap.

Reap, reaper; he who taketh away; a breath, hitched.

No air; cold feet.

A gasp, wordless; a knock—

(Who's there?)

Not the time for gloating. (Is it ever?)

Click.

Pause.

Blue.

Dark blue; midnight blue, sapphire, navy; dark blue.

Just like that?

Yes, just like that.

There you go again.

A puff of air, falling.

(Yeah.)

Another breath, still cold.

Fingers wrapped around sweater sleeves. Make a fist.

That's too bad,

(Yes, it is.)

You would have been a great mother.

(This isn't happening.) No.

No Joy, no air, no air, no—

You son of a bitch.

(Bitch's dog, dogs bark, bark's tree, tree's nature, nature's beautiful and—)

Why do you need to negate everything?

(And so am I, everything is.)

Inhale; freeze. Shards of ice, freezing on the way down, down; cold as steel; steel blue, denim, cerulean.

I don't know.

(The son of a bitch.)

Pause: static, white noise.

Damp—cerulean, cobalt; royal, electric—

Drowning in a sea of blue; lifted, let lips do what hands do.

No air, warm hands. Sleeves: too long.

Still no Joy, but—

What?

(I don't know.)

Red under your eyelids, red in your fingertips, red, red, all red, flowing, pumping, deafening. The embrace, the taste the touch (bright light with closed eyes) every color at once.

Stop.

(Why?)

Because.

Back again, a swing; balls of your feet.

(Red mist, dissipating.)

Cold leather on damp fingers, black and. Blue, eyes a sad azure.

Inhale, exhale; soles of your feet.

Goodnight.

Pivot, turn, walk away.

Shadows by the doorway, outside in; backlit, unseen.

Midnight blue, closes—

A beat; goodnight. (Good night?)

Cream walls, too empty; joyless, overflowing.

Slide back down; breathe out, breathe in.

Wet eyes, full lungs, full heart, cold feet.

White.

A crib, a wedding gown. Begin again, no.

It never ended.


End file.
